Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Much talk has been made about the NHL going back to ESPN soon, and while it's still a possibility, Gary Bettman (on CSN Chicago's "Monsters in the Morning") said that the "Leader" wasn't the place for the league following the strike. The NHL Commish even explained that network television isn't all it's cracked up to be when it comes to Hockey. Via Sports Business Daily....

"There tends to be some criticism of them, probably initiated by some of their competitors. We felt coming out of the work stoppage and the year off, doing the traditional mode, going back to ESPN, where they have everything, wasn’t going to help us bring the game back as strong."

"With the use of digital technology, we can really give our fans as close a connection to the game as they want in a whole variety of ways. We think having come back as strong as we have from the work stoppage, four years of record attendance and record revenues; our ratings are up just about everywhere on television. We’re probably as strong as we’ve ever been."

I guess that's a strong point in theory (when you consider Hockey ratings are never THAT good), but if you are trying to get people to see a Sport, wouldn't you go to where the most eyes were/are? Seems like it's only a matter of time before ESPN picks Hockey back up, and thank goodness, because Versus is just about the hardest channel to find on cable.

ESPN is seen by many, including here at AA, as the center of the sports broadcasting universe.

If the NHL were back on the four-letter, they'd be one of many - I mean, does the network have the bandwidth to show every NHL playoff game the way Versus has after Round One, plus honor its NBA and MLB commitments? Would ESPN have bumped the NFL draft off the main network for a hockey game, or put hockey on ABC instead of an NBA game? I doubt it.

The NHL was useful for ESPN when it was rolling out ESPN2 and needed programming. It doesn't need programming any more - it has NBA, NFL, a billion college games, etc.

And if the NHL did go to ESPN, how often would it find itself in the UEFA Champions League memorial non-HD ESPN Classic broadcast - doesn't that defeat the point since hockey, more than any other sport, relies on HD to make it watchable at home?

There's plenty not to like about Versus - but its not like its on the GD Lifetime channel or something.

Versus and the league would be better served by offering more games, a nightly highlight show and the like, rather than limiting their broadcasts to one or two games a week during the season.

Versus needs programming - like a nascent version of "The Deuce" all those many years ago. If they could get a couple more minor-ish sports like hockey, maybe bid on the MLS the next time it comes up, or look overseas at rugby, or Aussie Rules Football, or non-EPL European football they could be a semi-serious player in the niche-sports market. Which isn't a bad place to be.

The biggest reason VS. sucks is that I have to pay an extra $12 to $15 to get it along with ESPNU and several other rarely watched channels. I do this only because some Red Wings games are exclusively on VS. In game 4 despite having the red wings exclusively and only being 2 hours outside of Detroit and being promised that I wouldn't miss a minute I was stuck with Chicago Vacncouver OT and had to miss 10 minutes. Local markets should never be shut out of any game.Fox Sports Detroit's coverage is much better and I never miss a minute when they get to cover the game.

Math Geek . . I live in Lansing and all the WIngs games have been on Fox Sports Detroit, the Versus feed is blacked out. We have DirecTV, so it might vary from cable system/satellite system.

There's a reason the NHL needs to be on ESPN though, and it has nothing to do with the broadcasting of games, and everything to do with being on SportsCenter and PTI, etc. Right now, it's not in the best interests of ESPN to talk about hockey, so they don't. If they carried it, at least a little bit, it would get more face time on the gab shows and Sportscenter.

After game five of the Pens/Caps series saturday night I flipped over to ESPN to catch some highlights, post game reaction, etc. Twenty minutes into the broadcast there was still no mention of Crosby, Ovechkin, etc., but plenty of talk about boring regular season baseball. The most compelling game of the night is an afterthought, that's why the NHL needs to at least be marginally on ESPN.

If I recall and I don't feel like looking it up but only Game 3, 5, 6, and 7 have been on Fox Sports Detroit. Games 1 and 4 were on VS. only. Game 2 was on NBC. I have Dish and Versus hasn't been blacked out at all so some games on FSD are also on Vs.